I have never made pants before. Mainly because I hardly wear pants so I have never had the inclination to learn, and also because my sewing teacher a long time ago said pants were difficult to sew and that totally turned me off.

On my way home from teaching little kids to read the other night, I chanced upon a you-tube tutorial on making pants the easy way and as you may have noticed, I love sewing shortcuts, so I was inspired to try the technique.

But being a bag of lazy bones, I made a sewing shortcut even shorter! I dug out a dress that I haven't worn for awhile (because many people asked if I was pregnant when I wore it...) And upcycled it!

That saved me from having to hem up the pants and doing a waistband or any closures.
So here's my very first sewing tutorial: upcycling a dress into a pair of pants :) *beams*

Step 1: Pick out a dress.
It should have a skirt portion at least the length that you want your pants to be. Maxi dresses work well for long pants. My dress was an empire-cut, just below the knee length which was just right. It was a cotton halter with elastic smocking at the back, but any jersey material should work as well.

Step 2: Lay the dress on your workspace as shown in the pic below.

Step 3: Fold it in half length-wise. Like the picture below.

Step 4: Take a pair of pants that currently fits you and align the waistband to where you would like the new waistband to be on your dress. The crotch of your pants should be aligned with the open side of your dress and the legs aligned with the folded edge.

Step 5: Cut the dress based on how wide you want your pants legs to be, leaving about a 1.5cm seam allowance. I wanted loose pants so I cut roughly along the line shown below.

Step 6: Open up the dress. It should look something like the pic below. Then with your dress inside-out, pin the edges together starting from the crotch.

Step 7: Sew the edges together!

Step 8: Try on the pants and see if it fits. Then fold down the top part of the dress which is no longer needed.

Step 9: Cut off the extra portion and sew it down so the top of your pants looks neat. If you are using jersey material, use a zig-zaged stitch.

Step 10: Admire your new pair of pants!
Hope you liked my first tutorial and my first pair of pants. Let me know if you try it out.